Milton, Weymouth schools plug into Code.org computer science program

Code.org provides free instruction in computer skills to elementary, middle school and high school students, as well as free material and professional development for their teachers

Lane Lambert The Patriot Ledger @llambert_ledger

WEYMOUTH – Milton and Weymouth schools are among a dozen Massachusetts school districts and only three dozen across the country that have plugged into a free computer-science program that’s supported by the founders of Facebook and Microsoft.

All of Milton’s schools and Weymouth High have partnered with Code.org, an open-source education program co-founded by Harvard University graduate Hadi Partovi. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft’s Bill Gates have given $10 million of their own money to support the initiative.

Code.org provides free instruction in computer skills to elementary, middle school and high school students, as well as free material and professional development for their teachers.

Milton and Weymouth both tapped into Code.org through MassCAN, the Massachusetts Computing Attainment Network.

Milton Assistant Superintendent John Phelan said the Code.org curriculum and teacher training will, for example, enable the district to teach third-and fourth-graders simple computer code they can use to steer the movement of Lego robots the students will build.

“If we can get our students excited about this at an early age, we will have some hungry scientists by the time they get to the sixth grade,” Phelan said.

Starting in the fall of 2014, Milton will introduce a coding class at Pierce Middle School, and add advanced material for two high school courses. Phelan said the district aims to offer a college-credit level, advanced placement computer science course by 2015.

By that point, he said Milton will offer code-writing classes to all students from grades 3 to 12. He said Code.org will “fill in the blanks for programs we’ve already started.”

The plan is much the same in Weymouth. Technology director Laura Stephenson said the high school will offer two sections of Code.org classes during the 2014-2015 school year. Stephenson said the school hopes to have 48 students in both sections.

The high school will add advanced-placement computer science courses in 2015, then expand the whole Code.org instruction to the two middle schools in 2016.

“Like many schools, we don’t have a strong computer science program throughout all our schools,” Stephenson said. “We have it in pockets. So this is very good for us.”

Stephenson said the Code.org partnership’s online and in-person training will be especially valuable for teachers, who will then be able to guide students through the concepts behind computer language and skills.

“We’re not teaching students enough about how to keep their technological development moving forward, as opposed to teaching them to be good (technology) consumers,” she said.

Like a larger number of U.S. school districts, Milton and Weymouth schools have already taken part in Code.org’s introductory “Hour of Code,” which adults can also use.

Stephenson said 2,000 of Weymouth’s 7,000 students sampled the “Hour of Code” – among them, some kindergartners and elementary-grade students.

From that session, she said students of all ages saw that computer science “is not a secret language.”

Lane Lambert may be reached at llambert@ledger.com or follow him on Twitter @LLambert_Ledger.